Author’s Note: This was a particularly challenging day for me. I was studying the small collection of Mongolian words I had accumulated in my notebook, when my host family came in and tried to help. They all stood around me and began rustling through my notebook, which upset me a great deal. I feel that notebooks are very personal things, coded in such a way that makes the most sense to you. They weren’t teachers either, so they just stared at the lists of words and decided the best way to proceed was to just say all the words aloud. Finally, my host brother asked, in English, what I needed help with as everyone stared upon me.

“I don’t know” was all I could muster to say.

It was overwhelming for so many reasons that were unclear to me. I can still remember their confused stares, as if they were asking “Why are you getting upset?”